Collaborative Economy

Whether you call it the new economy, solidarity economy, collaborative economy or something else entirely, the movement toward different economic practices is well underway. These new practices emphasize workplace democracy, sustainability and social justice. We’re working to ensure they also incorporate the commons-based principles, best practices and tools of the free/libre/open-source movement.

Open data standards and sharing practices? They're vital for creating and maintaining common information resources (ex. directories) needed for the development of software applications and insightful analysis about the collaborative economy.

Enterprise-grade logistics software and productivity tools? Instead of paying for proprietary software solutions produced by old economy organizations, we can invest together in the development of open source solutions produced by new economy networks. If we can align the development interests of collaborative economy actors, then we can build the type of FLO solutions that can give the entire cooperative sector consistent, reliable system upgrades.

Free/libre/open-source mutual credit systems and cryptocurrencies? These are missing links that enable us to move value amongst the emergent nodes in the collaborative economy network — allowing us to transcend the restrictions of artificial scarcity enforced by national monetary policies.

As the collaborative economy and free/libre/open-source movements integrate, a world of opportunities opens up. Let‘s get to work!